The facility will enable greater interaction between staff and students of Massey and AgResearch, while also providing scope for a range of independent trials to operate at any one time.
The Dairy 4 Farm, adjacent to Massey’s Manawatū campus, has approximately 600 spring calving cows and is the largest of the university’s two farms.
Professor Paul Kenyon, Head of Massey’s School of Agriculture and Environment, says the new facilities will enable detailed research projects on the farm to be carried out at the same time as usual operations.
“The new facilities will boast two rotary milking platforms which will allow detailed research projects to take place alongside the farm’s daily operations. Other new facilities include a covered veterinary area for individual cow measurements and a multi-lane feed pad to enable differential feeding to various groups of cows. There will also be an effluent treating system, a data centre within the shed to store and manage research data, a teaching room and a biosecurity station.
“The partnership with AgResearch will help Massey build on its reputation of contributing world-leading pure and applied research, in partnership with industry, on matters that are of national and international interest including environmental impacts of climate change, biosecurity issues, animal welfare issues and economic threats posed by innovations in food production,” Professor Kenyon adds.
